Prayers of Adoration

Watch or 5:54

Our Opening Prayer, a Prayer of Adoration, comes to us in the hymn we are about to sing.  The words were written by a Canadian writer, Sylvia Dunstan, who was mentored by Miriam Therese Winter. In this hymn are the paradoxes we meet in Jesus and the parables in the psalms.

You Who are both Lamb and Shepherd, by Sylvia Dunstan (VU210) – Tune PICARDY TIS 497

You, who are both Lamb and Shepherd.
You, who are both prince and slave.
You, peacemaker and swordbringer
Of the way you took and gave.
You the everlasting instant;
You, whom we both scorn and crave.

Clothed in light upon the mountain,
Stripped of might upon the cross,
Shining in eternal glory,
Beggar’d by a soldier’s toss,
You, the everlasting instant;
You, who are both gift and cost.

You, who walk each day beside us,
Sit in power at God’s side.
You, who preach a way that’s narrow,
Have a love that reaches wide.
You, the everlasting instant;
You, who are our pilgrim guide.

Worthy is our earthly Jesus!
Worthy is our cosmic Christ!
Worthy your defeat and vict’ry.
Worthy still your peace and strife.
You, the everlasting instant;
You, who are our death and life.
Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.
You, who are our death and our life.

Words: Sylvia Dunstan 1984 copyright © 1991 G.I.A. Publications Inc.
Reproduced with permission under ONE LICENCE # 604502

Introduced by Julie Perrin, offered for worship 31/072022, Pentecost 8

Prayers of Lament & Confession

Watch or 9:24

‘Mercy and truth have met together;
righteousness and peace have kissed each other.’

Why do we trample the earth?
Why are we at war?
Why do we name people as ‘other’?
Why are people starving, crippled by disease and despair?

Why are we not listening to the earth?
Why do we close our ears to the wisdom of First peoples?
Why do we fail to cherish the stories of marginalised people?
Why are we not listening to Your voice in the world?

Saide Cameron, offered for worship 31/07/2022, Pentecost 8

Skies reflected and light refracted.
Glimmers revealing deep waters
holding a complex ecosystem in balance,
unfathomable to our minds.

Yet we have seen our past actions and are now feeling the future…
oh how will looming change transform the places (and people) we hold so dear?

Awaken and restore us oh God.
May we come to know a deep love
and respect of life around us,
coming to really know you more and more
and find the steps we need to take”

Mike Rigby, offered for worship 31/07/2022, Pentecost 8
to accompany his image ‘The Lagoon’

Prayers of the people

Watch or 52:45

Today we pray for those building bigger barns – who are already so blessed,
and we also pray for those who have nothing.
When we think about all the possessions in our lives,
perhaps we too store up treasures for ourselves but are not rich toward God.
May we guard against greed and have the courage
to examine our plans and schemes in the light of your kingdom.
We pray too for those who do not have enough to feed themselves or their families,
whose crops have failed, whose farms or oceans are empty or fenced off
and who tonight will go hungry.
May we as a community, a country and a global society
learn to share and care more for those in need.

We pray for those who mourn and for those who are rejoicing.
Let us stop in silence to remember those we know who
need comfort, grace, support or a listening ear.
PAUSE.
Be with them we pray dear God and may they sense your presence.
For friends who have had good news, who are experiencing
new opportunities, life, love and joy, thank you dear God,
may they share in a banquet of grace and hope.

We pray for our friends and for our enemies.
It’s easier to pray for our friends we know,
but help us to take up your challenge to do good to those who seem to want to harm us.
We think of times when we have felt personally slighted or ignored.
Help us not to be so thin skinned.
We know we feel uncertain about war and global aggression a
nd it seems that retribution and retaliation are the only possible responses.
Help us to learn about and practise creative non-violence.
We think about disagreements and differences in our society
which get amplified and when people different to us seem
less worthy or less important than we are.
Help us to be peacemakers, reconcilers,
to break down walls that divide, rather than hiding behind those walls
or just accepting the status quo.

In our efforts to follow you on the path of love, we pray that you will
give us empathy so that we won’t turn away from a hurting world, even if it costs us.
May we live with gratitude for all you give us. Help us to listen to what you ask of us.
Help us to remember earthly Jesus – who shared our humanity and human frailties
and may we never lose sight of cosmic Christ – who reminds us
that creation is the body of God, the first testament,
a gift of abundance from the ground of our being.

In your name, AMEN

Tim Budge, offered for worship 31/07/2022, Pentecost 8